Galerie [DAM] Berlin / UBERMORGEN.COM

29 January – 23 March 2011
BEING POLITICAL IS SUCH A HUGE TREND™
Featuring Somali pirate-fashion project WOPPOW and real-life digital oil painting project DEEPHORIZON
Works by UBERMORGEN.COM

Vernissage: 28 January, 19:00 – 21:00

Galerie [DAM]Berlin, Tucholskystraße 37, 10117 Berlin
Opening times: Tues – Fri 12:00 – 18:00, Sat 12:00 – 16:00

> dam-berlin.de [6]

[DAM] Berlin Gallery is part of an overall concept of imparting art that is exclusively dedicated to the influence of the computer and the digital in art and society. They are especially interested in the contextual examination of this medium and/or new artistic forms. Further components of the [DAM] project are the online-museum dam.org [7]and the d.velop digital art award [ddaa] ddaaonline.org [8].

WOPPOW

A new flagship store will open in the design metropolis of Berlin on 28 January 2011. Fashion designer WOPPOW is pushing the limits of couture with his new kind of aggressive streetwear: CRASH COLOR BULLET CHIC - MODELS PENETRATED BY BULLETS! This is fashion in the age of predatory capitalism, global aggression and the indifference of the profiteers. His couture eradicates the pseudo violence and the superficial use of military style in contemporary fashion. Bright shining colours and bullet holes are the trademarks of his brand. The latest kick against global boredom and the saturation of the decadent fashion world – highly political fashion mirroring the brutal reality of our world. Shot by real bullets. The temporary WOPPOW flagship store is situated in the heart of Berlin – just across the street of  the Wunderkind store – displaying fashion and performative videos of the WOPPOW production process.

Launched by the artist couple UBERMORGEN.COM, WOPPOW is political art at its best. Ironic, blunt and provocative UBERMORGEN.COM uses the medium of fashion – an integral part of all social classes in Western culture and a multi-billion industry – to point to Somalia, "a dirty backyard“ of our industrial society. Its fishing grounds are plundered by industrial countries, its oceans are used as cheap dumping grounds for contaminated waste. Since decades, the industrial nations and global corporations take advantage of the chaotic circumstances in Somalia. Now there is a strong and uncontrollable countermovement – piracy. Built up by stranded fishermen and people who have nothing to lose, offshore piracy has grown into a profitable branch of north-east African economy. The pirates are the new African heroes, they speak the same aggressive language as the industrial nations, they are fearless, venturous and their story is sexy: the poor fighting the global players. The pirates are the ideal models to create a new kind of streetwear. They are the perfect medium for a multi-billion fashion industry in search of the next new trend.

DEEPHORIZON

The solo show also features DEEPHORIZON, a time-critical project proclaiming the revival of painting. DEEPHORIZON consists of aerial images from the BP oil spill. The artists have transformed these digital files into abstract images. Adapting the aesthetic tradition of oil painting, the pieces are printed on canvases.

"The supreme discipline of art – oil painting – is back with a vengeance – in the form of an oil painting on a 80.000 square miles ocean canvas with 32 million litres of oil – a unique piece of art... It has been 13 days since a BP oil and gas exploration well blew out, setting fire to the drilling rig, which sank, killing 11 people. Ever since, crude oil has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, raising the prospects of a historic environmental disaster. Winds from the south-east have nudged the slick northward... and has begun to paint the coastlines. Finally oil painting has evolved into generative bio-art, a dynamic process the world audience can watch live via mass media.“ – Artists' Statement, May 6, 2010